October 3, 2018 | Arts / Entertainment

Nik Dodani is bringing the funny

If you missed last week's debut of the return of Murphy Brown to television, you will be forgiven.

The show originally aired from 1988 to 1998, and took home 15 Emmy Awards during that time. But, in TV terms, that was a long time ago. With all the political craziness going on these days, CBS decided to bring the series, and most of the original cast, back.

Sadly, the first episode fell a little flat.

One newbie to the cast is Nik Dodani. He plays Pat Patel, the social media guru, there to force the older characters into the modern digital age of Snapchat and Twitter. Young and spunky, even his presence wasn't enough to really bring out the laughs. Hopefully that will change as the series finds its feet.

But Dodani is someone to watch. He recently appeared in the Netflix coming of age LGBTQ film Alex Strangelove. He also has a major role of Zahid in the critically-acclaimed Netflix series Atypical, where he helps coach his autistic friend through some of life's big challenges like dating and employment.

Dodani honed his comedy chops at places like The Comedy Store, The Laugh Factory and The Hollywood Improv. He's also released some hilarious video sketches online, like "My Date with gays for Trump."

But he seems most comfortable as a stand-up comedian. He recently showed his stuff on an episode of The Late Show with Stephen Colbert.